I often get attacked when I suggest that Apple is ripping of it's loyal customers. Even when I produce data they dimiss it quickly and point me to rigged comparisons where Apple always emerges victorious.
To this end I have created the following comparisons which are actually as favorable to Apple as possible. You see there is no way to compare a la carte products when deals are included. Each manufacturer builds their systems and then make deals that actually allow them to reduce prices according to hiden traits in their production chain.
Macheads usually pull the best deal they can find from Apple and then try to stretch the worst value-for-money that they can find to show that Macs cost the same or less. This is not fair ! Still Dell's offerings have such good VFM that they still beated the Macs even in this process.
To conduct my comparissons I:
- pulled out offers from Apple's store
- picked a same priced Dell from the XPS line of products
- augmented the Apple to match the XPS's features, this was never possible to do the other way, since the XPS's hardware was always better
- augmented the Dell to my liking until it met Apple's price point, although in the last case that was impossible
And why the Dell XPS you will ask ? Like I said I make this test favorable to Apple to show that it's still ripping it's customers. The XPS lineup provides machines with the exact same screen diagonal and almost exact same thickness. The Macs are orthorectangular and the XPSes are wedge shaped, but their actual volume is about the same.
So here goes:
Entry level 13'' laptops
| | Dell XPS m1330 | Macbook |
| |  |  |
| Price | 1099$ | 1110$ |
| CPU | 2 GHz | 2 GHz |
| Display | CCFL | CCFL |
| Memory | 2 GB | 1 GB |
| Hard drive | 160 GB 5400 rpm | 120 GB 5400 rpm |
| Graphics card | X3100 | X3100 (onboard) |
| Wifi | 801.11g | 801.11n |
| Battery | 6 cell | 6 cell |
| Palmrest | Aluminum | White plastic that gradually turns yellow |
| Audio | Onboard | Onboard |
| Warranty | 1 year parts & labor | 1 year parts & labor |
| Weight | ~ 2 kg | ~ 2.27 kg |
| Fingerprint reader | Yes | No |
| Theft protection | None | None |
| Ridiculous stuff | Remote that hides in a PCMIA slot & Recycling kit & Plant a tree for me | External remote |
| Crapware | Various | .Mac for month |
The differences are not really significant. As an owner of this product I would like to point out that I really like the fact that the remote in the laptop hides in the actual body of the machine.
Powerhouse 13'' laptops
| | Dell XPS m1330 | Macbook Black |
| | |  |
| Price | 1684$ | 1710$ |
| CPU | 2.4 GHz | 2.4 GHz |
| Display | LED (brighter and thinner) | CCFL |
| Memory | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| Hard drive | 320 GB 5400 rpm | 250 GB 5400 rpm |
| Graphics card | GeForce 8400M GS 128 MB | X3100 (onboard) |
| Wifi | 801.11n | 801.11n |
| Battery | 9 cell | 6 cell |
| Palmrest | Aluminum | Black plastic that actually manages to discolor |
| Audio | Soundblaster Audigy HD | Onboard |
| Warranty | 3 year in house, parts & labor | 1 year parts & labor |
| Weight | ~ 2 kg | ~ 2.27 kg |
| Fingerprint reader | Yes | No |
| Theft protection | LoJack | None |
| Ridiculous stuff | Remote that hides in a PCMIA slot & Recycling kit & Plant a tree for me | External remote |
| Crapware | Various & 2 years McAffee | .Mac for a month |
Apple's 15'' high end
| | Dell XPS m1530 | Macbook Pro 15 |
| |  |  |
| Price | 2092$ | 2499$ |
| CPU | 2.5 GHz | 2.5 GHz |
| Display | LED | LED |
| Memory | 4 GB | 2 GB |
| Hard drive | 320 GB 7200 rpm | 250 GB 5400 rpm |
| Graphics card | GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB | GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB |
| Wifi | 801.11n | 801.11n |
| Battery | 9 cell | 6 cell |
| Palmrest | Aluminum | Grey plastic that is very hard to discolor |
| Audio | Sound Blaster Audigy HD | Onboard |
| Warranty | 3 year in house, parts & labor | 1 year parts & labor |
| Weight | ~ 2.6 kg | ~ 2.45 kg |
| Fingerprint reader | Yes | No |
| Theft protection | Lojack | None |
| Ridiculous stuff | Remote that hides in a PCMIA slot & Recycling kit & Plant a tree for me | Fake multitouch trackpad & External remote |
| Crapware | Various & 2 years McAffee | .Mac for a month |
Mac users (which very often act as marketing beacons) argue that PCs have hidden costs. To counter that, I have included in each configuration the greatest possible dell warranty. This means that given the propability of an breakdown which can set you back an average 250$ we're actually saving money. Also the added performance should more than make up for running the free AVG antivirus and Windows Defender. Granted that Macs get by default only 1 year of support and you have to bring them in, the 3 year total cost of ownership should be greater, but it's ok, even if I factored that in noone would actually accept it as a price argument.
On the mac side I chose not to do that because the AppleCare contracts are actually ridiculously expensive and don't actually include in-house fixing.
At some point I promise to do the tests the other way around. This means that I will pick a good value-for-money from Dell and adjust the Apple to meet it's characteristics. In my early experiments this would make the Mac 30% more expensive. It really should be fun !